Marlborough couple making cross-country bike trip

MARLBOROUGH – The time is ripe for a road trip, but the cross-country trek being made by a Marlborough couple is a far shot from the Clark Griswold-style trips many families make during the summer months.

Instead of jamming everything they can fit into a station wagon, Tim and Debbie Bishop are packing a little lighter.

The pair is in the midst of a cross-country bicycle trip, having pushed off from the coast of Manzanita, Oregon on July 3. They’re destined for the Atlantic Ocean, which they’ll probably reach somewhere on the Rhode Island coast in the early fall.

The trip isn’t just a personal challenge for the married couple, though. While they’re peddling from state to state, the Bishops are also on a journey to raise money for an organization that seeks to help young people in trouble.

The couple is riding to raise money for TheHopeLine, a Christian crisis and suicide hotline for young people. The Bishops hope to raise $100,000 for the organization.

Monday, the 33rd day of their trip, found the Bishops taking a rest day in Gillette, Wyoming. In a phone interview, they said it was an easy decision to raise money for TheHopeLine, where they have both volunteered for the past few years.

"It’s just a meaningful thing for us," Tim Bishop said of the couple’s volunteer work. "It’s just a great organization."

Tim Bishop said that through his time answering calls and online chats from young people contacting TheHopeLine, he has realized how difficult things can be for young people living in a high-tech, high-speed environment.

"The pressures nowadays are a lot different then they were when I was growing up," he said. "It has just been eye opening to me."

The trip so far has brought the couple across Oregon, through Idaho, over Montana and into Wyoming. It has been difficult, Debbie Bishop said, but this isn’t exactly the Bishops’ first rodeo. They completed a cross-country bike trip in 2010 and made another trip from Florida to Maine in 2012.

Debbie called the trip so far "a wonderful experience" and said that she and her husband have a good way of working collaboratively and pushing each other along.

"To do this together, as a couple, it’s really a bonding experience," she said. "We just work as a team."

The Bishops are hoping to finish their trek by early October. They are blogging about the experience at www.openroadpress.com, where visitors can find a Google map tracking their progress. There is also a link to donate to TheHopeLine at www.openroadpress.com/links/pledge-form/.

Kendall Hatch can be reached at 508-490-7453 or khatch@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kendall_HatchMW.